I was proud of him, alas! until I began to perceive that, as matters were working, the boy was morally certain to be ashamed of me. This was a hard discovery; and it went hard with me after I had made it. But nothing could reduce the poignancy of the inquiry with which I had first gathered him to my heart, in the solitudes where he had found me lurking: If I were a spiritual outcast, what would become of Boy? As the child waxed in knowledge and in strength questions like these dropped from his lips so frequently that they distressed me:-- "Papa, what is God?" "Papa, who is worship?" "Tell me how boys pray." "Is it a kind of game?" "What is Christ, papa? Is it people's Mother? What is it for?" My friend, the eminent surgeon, left me much to myself in these perplexities; regarding my natural reserve, and trusting, I thought, to nature, or to some Power beyond nature, to assist me. But on one occasion, happening to be present when the child interrogated me in this manner, he bent a piercing gaze upon me. "Why do you not answer the child, Esmerald Thorne?" he asked me in a voice of authority. "Alas," I said, "I have no answer. I know nothing of these matters. They have been so foreign to my temperament, that--I"-- But here I faltered. I felt ashamed of my excuse, and of myself for offering it. "It is a trying position for a man to be put in," I ventured to add, putting an arm about my boy; "naturally, I wish my child to develop in accordance with the social and educational system of the place." "Naturally, I should suppose," replied he, dryly. He offered me no further suggestion on the subject and with some severity of manner moved to leave me. Now it happened to be the vesper hour in the hospital, and my visitor was going to his patients, the "sick of soul," with whom he was wont to join in the evening chant which, at a certain hour, daily arose from every roof in the wide city, and waxed mightily to the sides. It was music of a high order, and I always enjoyed it; no person of any musical taste could have done otherwise. "Listen!" said my friend, as he turned to depart from me. I had only to glance at his rapt and noble countenance to perceive the high acoustic laws which separated his sensibility to the vesper from my own. To him it was religious expression. To me it was classical music. While I was thus thinking, from the great wards of the Home of Healing the prayer went up. The sinful, the sorely stricken, the ungodly, the ignorant of heavenly mercy, all the diseased of spirit who were gathered there in search of the soul's health, sang together: not as the morning-stars which shouted for joy, but like living hearts that cried for purity; yea, like hearts that so desired it, they would have broken for it, and blessed God. "_God is a Spirit. God is a Spirit. We would worship Him. We would worship Him in spirit. Yea, in spirit. And in truth._"